Tuesday, May 11, 2004
CIA Inadequacies
In today's NYT a long investigative article details the inadequacy of CIA staff to handle the international scene once it has been enlivened by terrorism. After the Cold War, staff able to operate overseas decline regularly because of staffing cuts, morale, and perhaps simple inattention. This decline persisted until 9/11, but even after this event it has been hard to increase the agency's capabilities in terms of overseas agents with adequate linguistic capabilities. Many reasons are brought forward, but there seem to be few new ideas.
Perhaps we need to take another look at our "go-it-alone" strategy in this area as well. If we could develop improved working relationships with the intelligence services of all responsible countries in the world, developed and developing, we could achieve much the same result as we could with a larger and more adequately trained American CIA. This attempt should, of course, be accompanied by a rethinking of the quality of the interface that exists between American and other agents in order to maximize the gains and minimize the dangers of such a change. The article laments the fact that the "official cover" given by embassies reduces the effectiveness of many officers. It suggests more full-time agents with unofficial cover. Another part of the solution would be to involve and give training to a larger number of Americans working overseas in a variety of roles. These would, in effect, be part-time agents. The CIA has always depended on such persons to some degree. But it may be useful to rethink and augment our approach in this area as well.
Both of these approaches would be made more acceptable to the governments and private actors involved if the United States "joined the world" as a full-time player. This means taking a more supportive role in regard to many international agreements, particularly by becoming a party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court International Court of Justice, or through reopening the discussion in such as way that we can be.
In today's NYT a long investigative article details the inadequacy of CIA staff to handle the international scene once it has been enlivened by terrorism. After the Cold War, staff able to operate overseas decline regularly because of staffing cuts, morale, and perhaps simple inattention. This decline persisted until 9/11, but even after this event it has been hard to increase the agency's capabilities in terms of overseas agents with adequate linguistic capabilities. Many reasons are brought forward, but there seem to be few new ideas.
Perhaps we need to take another look at our "go-it-alone" strategy in this area as well. If we could develop improved working relationships with the intelligence services of all responsible countries in the world, developed and developing, we could achieve much the same result as we could with a larger and more adequately trained American CIA. This attempt should, of course, be accompanied by a rethinking of the quality of the interface that exists between American and other agents in order to maximize the gains and minimize the dangers of such a change. The article laments the fact that the "official cover" given by embassies reduces the effectiveness of many officers. It suggests more full-time agents with unofficial cover. Another part of the solution would be to involve and give training to a larger number of Americans working overseas in a variety of roles. These would, in effect, be part-time agents. The CIA has always depended on such persons to some degree. But it may be useful to rethink and augment our approach in this area as well.
Both of these approaches would be made more acceptable to the governments and private actors involved if the United States "joined the world" as a full-time player. This means taking a more supportive role in regard to many international agreements, particularly by becoming a party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court International Court of Justice, or through reopening the discussion in such as way that we can be.
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